A famous Biblical story from Exodus tells of
the Israelites wandering around in the desert with little to eat while they hoped
to the find the Promised Land. At one
point, God provides them manna to eat and Moses has them gather it for days to
provide them nourishment.
The ‘Jacks most definitely are searching for the
volleyball Promised Land of a berth in the NCAA tournament and after a brief
wandering in the desert, Makenzee Manna.. I mean, Makenzee Hanna… has been
provided to us once again. Opponents hoping to feast on SFA’s defense have been
sent wandering by a showering of blocks from the 6-foot sophomore from DeSoto.
During the early tournament phase of the 2016 schedule,
Hanna was a regular presence. At that
time, SFA was running a 6-2 offense and Mak was stationed primarily on the
right side along with Abby McIntyre.
There were bright spots: 8 kills
and four blocks in a win over Kennesaw State, the opening match of the year
against Eastern Illinois (six blocks), but overall it was clear that the
offense wasn’t quite running at high octane.
After the team hit .039 against Texas Tech and .073 against UTRGV, you
could feel the changes coming. I thought about them driving All. The. Long. Way.
Home. From. Lubbock.
The team came home to begin its conference slate against
Incarnate Word and host its own tournament in Shelton Gym. This last set of concentrated games huddled
together on consecutive days gave the club one last chance to see if changes
would be profitable before the regularity of Southland play. Setters were changed. Offensive schemes were changed. Ann Hollas made the first start of her career
in her first Southland Conference match and we’ve been in a 5-1 ever since.
Hanna got lost in the shuffle. Going from 6 hitters to 5 on offense meant a diminished
role and during the better part of September, Hanna found herself on the bench while
SFA began its first few phases of looking for the second left-side hitter. At this point, fellow sophomore Haley Coleman
had been re-assigned to the back row, KK Payne started a handful of matches and
played in a handful more and Peyton Redmond became the six-rotation outside
hitter. It worked. Other than a home loss to Baylor, the team
won a ton of September games and it appeared as though the offense was set to
roll.
Ever the one to fix it when it breaks, Debbie Humphreys
called on Hanna during all five sets vs. ACU having seen the sophomore be
productive against Nicholls the week prior.
During the end of September, Hanna had sat for six straight
matches. A brief time in the
desert. But after the Nicholls match and
playing all five sets in the team wake-up call match against ACU, Hanna had
been provided to us again.
But how? Sitting
on the couch at home (Ok, pacing the living room floor watching the stupid
StatTracker), I was frantically trying to answer one big question with no video
to provide me the answer:
How are we using Makenzee Hanna?
You see, to this point, Hanna had worked basically
exclusively on the right side. So, while
the thought crossed my mind that she might be on the left - and the
substitution patterns popping up on the screen suggested it - I couldn’t let my
mind accept it without seeing it. Like
the Israelites, I didn’t have the necessary faith to recognize all the signs
that were before me.
Oh, I had thought about what else we might do on the
left-side. Geez, I’ve been pining for
left-side quality for years in this blog space.
“Redmond is doing great on defense and passing, but hitting at .100”, my
mind would say. What are we going to do
about that? “Coleman struggled on offense at the beginning of the year, is she
essentially back row only now?” “ Would Debbie start Xariah Williams
there? She’s been telling me she’s doing
great things in practice”. “Can KK hold
down the load for a full year as a freshman? She’s done some good things”.
All these questions and not one time did I think our
answer would be to rotate Makenzee Hanna to the left-side. And this is why I’m the blogger, the
commentator, still learning, and not a coach (not that I want to be, trust me). It seems like such a great idea to me
NOW.
Sure enough, when my eyes could finally take over for the
coldness that is StatTracker, Makenzee Hanna was playing on the left against
Central Arkansas. You know the
rest. In the last two weeks, SFA hasn’t
lost a set and that includes some ridiculous net defense in the last week
against Lamar and HBU.
That’s why Hanna’s resurgence in the lineup makes such
sense. She makes what is already a great
blocking team even better. In fact, in
her last five matches she has blocked at least four balls. Her 50 blocks in 57 sets equates to a 0.88
block per set number that is better than over half of the starting middle
blockers in the conference. Take our
next opponent, Sam Houston as an example.
No Bearkat has the block per set numbers that Hanna has.
With an offense that is led by McIntyre and senior Justice
Walker, Hanna is a perfect complementary piece.
In Southland Conference matches, she’s killed over two balls per set
which equals the production of our second middle, Danae Daron. Have you noticed in most of SFA’s recent wins
that we have tons of players around 6 to 10 kills? Check out the distributions of the top four
kill-getters in the last six conference wins, which roughly parallels when
Hanna became a fixture again:
Nicholls: 15,
9, 8, 8
UIW: 17,
8, 7 , 6
UCA: 8,
7, 5, 5
NSU: 8,
7, 6, 6
Lamar: 12,
8, 7, 6
HBU: 9,
8, 8, 5
Keep in mind each of the above wins was in three or four
sets. So, consistently we are getting
four players that AVERAGE at or over multiple kills per set. Again, this is a far cry from some of our
competitors that get most of their offense from just one or two players: Lamar (Chelsea Grant), Sam Houston (Jordyn
Vaughn and Brooke White), Incarnate Word (Autumn Lockley), even leaders Corpus
Christi (Brittany Gilpin, Morgan Carlson and sometimes Madison
Fitzsimmons). This balance is, in part,
why you’ll find us in second place, but with nobody in the Top 10 in kills per
set in the Southland.
Spare yourself the research of how many of those players
on that list are NOT middle blockers.
You know where I am going with this.
What Hanna has been able to do on defense from her position is unrivaled
right now in the conference.